RECENT COMMENTS BY Bernard Chapin

Columns by Bernard Chapin

There is no group of Americans so perplexing and exasperating as those holdouts who continue to view giving money to the government as a form of charity. They wrongly regard their contributions as dollars spent towards saving lives and promoting virtue. The real story of government, indeed, the real story behind any socialist enterprise, is that the power given to the state is always power...

Out of the many conservative politicos on television, Fred Barnes of Fox News is perhaps the most talented and savvy. His arguments are often the clearest, and he is a formidable opponent even on those occasions when his talking points are obviously beaten. In his new book, Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush, Barnes puts forth a thesis which would occur...

On Tuesday we have a national election that will no doubt greatly impact our future, but the one thing it cannot control is our nation's descent into emotocracy, which is my term to describe the way in which emotion has transcended thought and intellect within the polity.
Politicians now get elected only through promising to do something about every disease, threat, and discomfort that someone...

The experience I remember best from teaching nine courses at the university level was the occasion when a class discussed a chapter out of a textbook concerning the variations in development between men and women. I found that most of the class believed that 'differences' should be placed in scare quotes as they regarded any distinctions as being the result of societal pressure as opposed to the...

'Bachelors know more about women than married men. If they didn't they'd be married, too.' ' H.L. Mencken.
A great sage predicted I'd take some serious abuse for what I wrote about marriage the other day. He was right, but for the benefit of our readers, I'm going to provide public refutation to some of the arguments and whines that were thrown my way en masse'if nothing else, their...

No writer that I know, and I am absolutely no exception, has the right to speak as an authority for all men. No matter what I say about honor and pride, some guy somewhere is going to spend his last dime on a dominatrix or propose to a coke whore. There's no getting around it. It's a fact. We can quibble and pretend dominated males are exceptions, but there are legions of guys out there who...

My amazement with the sad fate that has befallen our wonderful neighbors to the north has sharply increased as I become increasingly acquainted with their society and government.
On April 15th, after reading about twenty articles for my blog concerning our tax day, I vicariously discovered that the Canadian people are only freed from the outrageous yoke of their government on June 28th 2004 (...

Unlike many of my redstate conservative counterparts, in Illinois, the public servants who represent me seldom share any of my views or beliefs, and this will be even truer when Peter Fitzgerald retires from the Senate next year. That is why, upon receiving a mailing from my Congressman, Danny Davis, I instinctively headed for the kitchen trashcan. However, on the way, I saw the headline, '...

In today's society there is no longer any reason to leave the house to rejoice in someone else's misery or suffering. Citizens used to have to make their way to Coliseums or to the town square to see beheadings and executions. Now, in these zero effort days, all one has to do is turn on the television to witness 49% of our population emasculated for free.

The spring 2003 release of The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, brought its author, Dr. Diane Ravitch, considerable acclaim and notoriety. The book is a thorough and concise review of American educational materials (primarily textbooks and standardized testing instruments) in the context of our politically correct landscape. The state of affairs turns out to...

Many readers may remember my friend Robert, and his tremendous legal difficulties documented in Custody Court Massacre. His divorce and child custody legal ordeal was horrific. Luckily, it appears that some of his problems have been resolved.
He told me on the phone, before he was last called before the judge, 'I don't care what happens. I'm willing to go to Riker's if I have to. I've...

The start of the school year has come again, and, as is usual, our administration has made a great many changes to our policies and curriculum for the upcoming semester. This is now my tenth year in education, and I have observed over time that, within the educational community, the concept of 'change' is considered a good in itself. Rarely is there any means with which to statistically analyze...

Jim Antle wrote a fine piece last week about the under-publicized phenomena of contemporary man's cognitions interfering with the institution of marriage. Antle uses himself as an example and his words resonate with fellows like me who find themselves in the same boat.

The political correctness that infects our colleges and universities has been well documented over the years. However, a lesser studied phenomenon is the amount of PC that is present within our primary and secondary schools. I noticed its presence during the time I interned at a major suburban district. The specter of Stalinist PC ended up having quite a bit to do with my future vocational...

I have worked as a school psychologist in the state of Illinois for nine years now, and am one of the few Americans who can really say that I love my job. I am very grateful for this state of affairs. Yet, at least 90% of my enjoyment comes from interactions with students as opposed to those with staff. My opportunity to observe education as a whole is rather unique, as I work alongside...

John H. McWhorter has just written an excelsior essay concerning the corruption of urban youth. It appears in the summer edition of City Journal. His 'How Hip Hop Holds Blacks Back' is a masterpiece, and I recommend it wholeheartedly. McWhorter is a Fellow in Public Policy at the Manhattan Institute and an associate professor of linguistics at the University of California , Berkeley .

My first love was not named Jenny or Sandra or Kay or Jackie. My first love's name was 'history.' I first met this mistress long before I knew its actual name. As far as love goes, our relationship has been remarkably stable and predates any dealings I ever had with the opposite sex. Indeed, it was a full year after I began studying when I developed my first childhood crush. It occurred as I...

Only a few short days ago, on July 11th 2003, our nation reached the point at which taxpayers could begin to work for themselves as opposed to working for the federal government. This day was lamented by federal bureaucrats who would like nothing better than to see citizens divert every one of their pennies to buoy up a centralized Disneyland of rides and pork barrel projects--also known as...

Last year I was previewing a textbook that I was about to use in a Human Development course I was teaching. The book was the usual flamboyant montage of facts, grids, and pictures, but then I suddenly ran across a most unusual sentence. It read, 'As a folksinger once sang, how many roads must an individual walk down before you can call them an adult.' I was stupefied.

Just in time for President Bush's trip to Africa comes word that we may get directly involved in the political crisis within the nation of Liberia. This is a land that has been blighted by 14 years of war and terror. Now the international community has turned to us and asked that we do something to about it.

Like many others across the nation, I watched television reports yesterday concerning the porch 'avalanche' in Chicago 's Lincoln Park neighborhood. I live about three miles from where the tragedy occurred. As I was reading about it this morning, I came across a passage that was all too familiar.

Oscar Wilde said that the cigarette was the perfect type of pleasure, as it was exquisite but left one unsatisfied. The same can be said regarding Richard Pipes' Communism: A History. It is a concise work, and its 160 pages of narrative are perfect for those under time constraints, but when you're done, you'll wish there was another section hidden behind the index.

I have written before about the fact that I am a member of the nation's largest teaching union, although, other than having about $500 extorted from my check each year, I rarely have any dealings with its hierarchy.
The one exception was in October of 2001. Back then, I was still paying into the union political action committee and was entitled to vote during the contract ratification process.

Dr. John R. Lott is a scholar of world repute who became very famous for his work concerning gun control. To say that Dr. Lott is an expert in his field of study may well be an understatement. His More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws is the seminal work on the influence of guns upon our society.

'Call you a waitperson?' I asked. What the hell was a waitperson? But that was what a girl told me to refer to her as after I called her a waitress. The year was 1991 and it was my first introduction to the totalitarian phenomenon known as 'political correctness' or PC. I had been previously shielded from it, although my friends who graduated from Michigan or Michigan State were already well...

One night during my ten year college reunion in June of 2001, my friend Grange and I retraced our old malingering grounds in the Coventry section of Cleveland Heights. We were disappointed to discover that the free-wheeling locale had turned into a suburban yuppie borough. All that remained from its bohemian past was a communist bookstore. Out of novelty, we decided to go in; although, much to...

'Tell everybody my story. Name names. Tell the truth, everyone should hear about this.' These words came from my friend Robert after the resolution of his child custody case. Unfortunately, in what follows, I lack the cajones to name any names other than his. However, I will say that his ex-wife hailed from South America and that the court in question was in New York City .

I never thought I'd be as grateful as I am today that my grandfather accepted the Ford Motor Company's transfer from Canada to the USA back in 1925. He was a Canadian citizen living in the province of Ontario when Ford announced that the American plants needed more skilled laborers. Luckily, he gathered up his family and crossed the Ambassador Bridge to settle in the country in which he is now...

The teacher unions are a longstanding cancerous influence on the body politic. They are highly accomplished in the art of political pressure, and funnel money into the accounts of whatever political candidates will uphold their monopoly on public schooling. In the 2000 election cycle, $2.7 million found its way into the Democratic Party war chest and was quite useful in promoting the idea that...

The National Taxpayers Union is one of the most important activist agencies in our nation because it represents the citizenry in its fight against the government leviathan. Their work is critical because the rest of us simply do not have the time to do it. Founded in 1969, the association is, in their own words, a 'non-partisan, public interest advocacy organization dedicated to lower taxes,...

In 2001, on our way back from Atlanta, my friend leaned over and pointed to an article in Reason that marked the first time I ever encountered the phrase "toxic bachelors." We laughed at its novelty, and since then it has often been used to describe many of my closest friends and confidants.

When I got home from work today, I heard on the news that Dr. Steven Hatfill, the guy the feds once thought was behind the anthrax caper, was given a ticket this weekend after a federal officer hit him with his car. The ticket stated that he had created an accident. According to the news snippet, the "accident" was precipitated by Dr. Hatfill's taking a photo of the agent who was "secretly"...

One of the funniest lines I've ever heard at the alternative school where I work came from one of our inner-city born and bred teachers. When asked if a female student in his class was pregnant he said 'No, but the guys are working on it.'
A humorous quip but poignantly true. Teen pregnancy at my low-income, inner-city school is not out of the ordinary. It's part of the infrastructure of our...